City Manager Wyatt Shields’ proposed annual operating budget for Falls Church, scheduled through the end of this month, will be accompanied by an equally sizable budget for capital improvement projects (CIPs) that will address the council’s priorities for non-operating budget expenditures, primarily infrastructure projects.
At its meeting last night, the city’s planning commission hoped to act on an action to propose that city staff adopt the definition of proposed CIP projects over the next six years.
But this year, the plan may run counter to some potentially ambitious new economic progression plans that have some members of the city’s near-private Economic Development Authority (EDA) worried, News-Press has learned.
CIP plans, developed under the direction of the city’s chief operating officer, Andy Young, and prepared through the city’s CIP coordinator, Caitlin Sobsey, may hinder some life progression plans that are in their infancy.
Perhaps the most critical case is the city’s public works department’s plan to construct a new building on the five acres of city-owned land now used as an asset backyard near Gordon Road.
The IPC budget includes $30 million for a new public works structure at this site. Although the new structure plan is not expected for another 3 years, its inclusion this year will make it much more complicated to remove it from the CIPs in the long term.
In fact, those five acres are smack dab in the middle of a very promising advertising progression domain of the city.
On the contrary, according to News-Press sources, all assets must be taken out of their primary domain so that maximum economic progress can be achieved there.
The other, even more vital, facet is the as-yet-unknown plans for the adjacent 20-acre Beyer Automotive that former city resident Mike Beyer, brother of Falls Church’s “favorite son” and U. S. Congressman Don Beyer, is arguably planning. your property in thisArray
Mike Beyer, who left town a few years ago and still operates Beyer Automotive here, has spent years slowly assembling his 20-acre plot of land that stretches along W. Broad Street from Volvo’s former showroom (now unoccupied). . Broad marks the W Trail
Although Beyer has been very secretive about his plans, at least as far as his conversations with city officials or this newspaper are concerned, they can’t be ruled out and the option of linking anything he’d like to do if he can simply involve connecting his site to the five-acre site will have to be a very sensible priority for the city.
Bob Young, president of the EDA, told the News-Press that he was not aware of what the EDA might propose at this time, but that the city would keep its functions open.
DPW’s primary purposes include: streets and sidewalks, traffic signals, street lighting, pavement markings and road signs, stormwater and sanitary sewer, buildings and facilities, urban fleet and equipment, urban forests and green spaces, and waste and recycling.
The existing Robert L. Goff Estate Yard was built in 1962 and is the operational center of the entire city. Due to the existing situations and the size of the building, staff recommends a new general demolition and replacement of the existing facilities. The allocation increases capacity, improves overall operating criteria and efficiency, expands existing services, and increases energy efficiency. Preliminary conceptual design and control plans are underway in FY24. For plan-making purposes, the new $30,000,000 allocation request is also included in this year’s CIP. such as the monetary reference documents in Section 2 for the Bond Referendum Policy. The source of investment through staff is debt, which will be issued in fiscal year 2028, which would require a long-term referendum on bonds.